Vocal Voices

Just reading the Express article on May removing the meaningful vote, which I'm not overly interested in as it was always a nothing statement, when I came across this little gem...

Labour Whips wrote: "Tonight the Government have tabled a series of amendments including one that removes the meaningful vote.

"It is vital Parliament has a meaningful vote include in the event of no deal with the EU.

"Wasn't Brexit about Parliament getting back control?"

NO it most certainly was not about Parliament getting back control. Parliament has had altogether too much control and not enough accountability. It is entirely the other way around. It is about Parliament being accountable to the PEOPLE and not having the excuse that we are in the EU and their hands are tied. It is about the fact that the majority of Parliament wants to stay in the EU but the majority of the Public do NOT.

Every single person who voted for Brexit should read these lines and understand what is going on here. They should remember why they voted the way they did and they should understand what will happen if they roll back on the ONE vital thing they have done in the last 70 years.

Of course that will not happen, but, hey, it has to be said.

Meaningful vote on Berxit my @rse. Everyone else in the EU is getting one choice and one choice only, rubber stamp the deal or veto it. Why, exactly, should the parliament of the UK think that the EU is going to allow us, the 28th member state, any more leeway than the other 27 states in the EU????

Morons the lot of them.

Meanwhile back in Brexit central....

We learn that yesterday Davis threatened to quit over the wording of the 'backstop' deal so it was amended to his liking with "expected" and that it would be "time limited".

Keep it vague, eh Dave? Why change tack now?

We also learn that Boris says the UK "lacks guts" and that "talks were heading for "meltdown" and Leave supporters may not get the deal they expected." Nobody knows who recorded his words nor who leaked them. Boris and Boris perhaps? They are not denied.

We now also know that the EU does not accept the Tory version of 'backstop' and says it can only be for NI not the whole of the UK.

And it has also been announced this afternoon that there is now an 'officail' campaign for a referendum on any deal. Best for Britain wants the vote before the March 2019 deadline. Reading between the lines that means it wants to revoke A50 if it wins.

It is hard for the ordinary person the think of ways to make things worse, but we have every confidence our politiicians can.

100% agree Frank. Our politicians seem to have no more plan or clue than they did two years since. All Theresa May seems to do is to leep kicking the can down the road and hoping something will turn up.
I may be being unfair but that's how it seems right now.

I wonder when it will eventually sink in that Brexit negotiations are not going well or, more truthfully, that they are going badly. Even the most optimistic Leaver cannot possibly think that the UK is on a winner.

So, what can be done?

We could plough on in the hope that something good turns up, but the track record is not good, At present we are doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results = insanity.

Or....

We could revoke A50. Sit down and work out a plan and present it to the EU. If the EU agrees to negotiate we talk. If it does not agree we walk leaving both sides in the full knowledge of what that entails.

Quiet, innit?

Sorry busy, work to do, Mrs S nagging, Friday, deadlines, tiles to lay in #1 son's French home...

I'll be back...

Don't put your back out Suff!

Yes, go easy on your back Suff.

Now we hear that the white paper is not to be published till after the June summit and not before as originally planned. It is also pushed back until after the cabinet's away day at Chequers some time in July. With the recess starting on the 24th of July to the 4th of September it does not leave much time to get things sorted by the October deadline.

Reading between the lines it appears that May will be testing the waters at the EU summit before meeting with the cabinet to tell them what can and cannot be done. Sheesh!

Workingman wrote:I wonder when it will eventually sink in that Brexit negotiations are not going well or, more truthfully, that they are going badly. Even the most optimistic Leaver cannot possibly think that the UK is on a winner.

That really depends on your point of view.

Let us take the firm Brexiter. The firm Brexiter knows that what is needed to be done is to break ties with the EU, go back to WTO rules, negotiate all the key treaties, open skies etc, right now, then get the hell out and spend the next decade fixing the mess.

Once that is done, then we can talk about where the country goes from there.

So for the Firm Brexiter, this negotiation is irrelevant. In fact Boris' point about the NI border is exactly to the point. So little trade is done over that border it is almost an irrelevance. The ONLY relevance is to the EU because it is a back door to cheap EU trade to the UK if they don't close it. The UK? The firm Brexiter doesn't care because most of them are free traders, so cheap EU trade is fine with them. It is, however NOT fine with the EU.

These talks, to the Firm Brexiter? Irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. OK it would be nice to go out on a reasonable note, but if they can't be reasonable what the hell are we doing in a superstate with them? A question which was asked a few times during the referendum but NOBODY on the remain side wanted to tackle that one. Why? Because the only possible answer is.... Leaving.

Of course this negotiation is of vital and critical import to two sectors of the UK:

1. The wishy washy, blamanche strength, scared of their own shadow Brexiter who did one rebellious thing only once in their lives and now regret being so radical.

2. The Remainers who won't answer the question of if the EU is such an intransigent bunch of ossers why the hell are we in a superstate with them. Because they won't even entertain the notion that things aren't 100% OK as they are.

I must admit that the reactions of any Brexiter anywhere near 60% convinced is going to be that they don't give a damn what the people who want a good transition think. They just want to be the hell out and get on with it and tell the EU where to stuff it.

The people who know what they are doing in politics have told May and Corbyn, firmly, that those Brexiters, 60% and above convinced, will decimate any party which is tagged with killing Brexit.

Which is why Corbyn sacked one of his cabinet for speaking out, why May will not sack any of the Brexit leaning ministers and why May will not negotiate anything which leaves us fully in the EU after we have left.

Negotiation? Nice to have. Reality? Scared politicians are not going to bow to what the EU want and, make no mistake, there are a LOT of scared politicians. The average run of the mill voter may not understand what a 16% swing vote to a single issue party really means. But you can bet your life that any seasoned politician has had it beaten into them that a swing of over 4% is a political catastrophe.

The Commission and the Council of the EU is doing what it does best. It is stagnating progress, creating tension and making people scared. What the people of the UK need to realise is that the only way to fight these kind of tactics is to not be scared, to keep saying NO and to make the member states of the EU fear that the Commission is going to fail. Only when that happens will the member states take the power back from the commission and force it to deal.

I'm sure our current crop of politicians, who have deluded themselves into thinking that Brexit was a vote to give "them" power, will make a mess of it somehow. The only hope I have on that front is that the EU make the conditions so onerous that nobody will see it as a good deal worth keeping and the conditions to re-join the EU so odious, that even the hardest Remainer gets the message.

Interesting post Suff. The problem imo is that we have a population who voted to leave, but a political class who don't want to leave.

It would have been better for them to make a decision two years since for wto and start making plans for that, because if you plan for the worst and expect the worst anything above that is a bonus.

In a way you know I think the EU has been a godsend for our politicians. Things they don't like they can blame on the EU and having many decisions made by the EU has made their life easier; taking full responsibility for governing the country seems to be scaring some of them.